Half Life was INDEED supposed to be a revolution in terms of interactive storytelling - and it was hailed as such.

I saw it as nothing but a pale imitation of System Shock - except without the cerebral gameplay and without the fantastic storyline and antagonist.

I played it at the time - and found it to be a pretty decent shooter with a very strong beginning. But after the numerous scripted events during the first few levels - it quickly devolved into a more or less standard shooter - for its time. That said, I DID complete it - which means it must have had something, because by then I'd stopped completing shooters. As much as Doom impressed me, it pretty much wore me out as far as shooting endless mobs and hunting door keys goes.

Oh, it had good level design and impressive AI - but really, nothing that excited me all that much.

That said, after System Shock came out in 1994 (years before HL) - that was the peak of the genre as far as I'm concerned - and it remains the peak of the genre, overall. Half Life was a complete joke in comparison for everything except the actual shooter gameplay. Since I was never a big shooter fan, I was never very impressed by it.

I was even less impressed by Half Life 2 - which is the very definition of linear set-piece shooting. Except for the Source engine, which really impressed the hell out of me.

Obviously, if you really loved shooters - and you were used to Quake or Unreal - then Half Life would have been special. But if you were into cerebral gameplay and non-linear level design over "bang-bang you're dead" - then System Shock was simply superior in every way.